The Sakya Jetsunmas: The Hidden World of Tibetan Female Lamas

Benard ([em]Chinnamastā [/em]), a retired religion professor, delivers a deeply researched if dry group biography of six female Tibetan Buddhist religious leaders. Benard studies jetsunmas (meaning “venerable women” spiritual practitioners) from the prominent Khon family, focusing on the intergenerational passage of teachings and the day-to-day circumstances of their lives in Sakya, Tibet, from 1756 to the present day. Using diaries, genealogies, and unpublished biographies written by the jetsunmas’ kin, Benard charts the minutiae of the jetsunmas’ lives in painstaking detail, including a comprehensive room-by-room tour of the Dolma Palace where some of the Khon family lived and a meticulous recounting of a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash and Nepal. Benard flits between Tibetan, Sanskrit, and English, and her habit of presenting her research without much in the way of narrative, historical context, or analysis will make this impenetrable even to many familiar with Buddhism (“she bestowed the complete exoteric Path with the Result numerous times, the esoteric level twice, and Vajravālī three times”). Specialists and scholars will appreciate this contribution to the scant literature on female figures in Buddhist history. (Mar.)